Women in the United States overall tend to make less money than men, but the gender wage gap is narrowing among younger workers, according to data published this week by the Pew Research Center.
In 22 of 250 cities, women aged fewer than 30 years earn the same amount as or more than their male counterparts, according to Pew’s analysis of Census Bureau data. Approximately 16% of all young women who are working full time year-round live in those areas where women are at or above wage parity with men.
The gender wage gap is uneven, especially in smaller areas, according to the analysis. In four metropolitan areas — Mansfield, OH; Odessa, TX; Beaumont-Port Arthur, TX; and Elkhart-Goshen, IN — women younger than 30 earn 67% to 69% of what their male counterparts make. Those areas account for 0.3% of the young women’s workforce.
The research also shows that the Midwest tends to have wider gender wage gaps among young workers. Young women working full-time year-round in the Midwest earn approximately 90% of what their male counterparts earn, on average, whereas that national average is approximately 93%. Young women on the West Coast are apt to earn approximately 95% of their male counterparts’ salary.
Although women and men start out on more or less equal footing, the gender wage gap broadens as the workforce ages. That trend generally is attributed to life events that can stall a career, such as child-rearing. According to the study, mothers were nearly twice as likely as fathers to say taking time off had a negative effect on their job or career. Among those who took a leave from work in the two years following the birth or adoption of a child, 25% of women said it had a negative effect at work, compared with 13% of men.
“This is consistent with a finding that labor economists have well documented — that women suffer a penalty when they become a mom,” Richard Fry, a senior researcher at Pew Research Center who conducted the study, told the Washington Post. Women, he told the media outlet, also often work in lower-paying fields such as healthcare and hospitality.
